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What's Up June 2010: View a planetary necklace spanning the sky

This month you can view a planetary necklace spanning the sky from dusk to dawn.

Transcript:

Title - What's Up
Jane Houston Jones: What's Up for June? Venus. And a planetary necklace spanning the sky from dusk to dawn.
Title - Dusk. Dawn. Mercury. Jupiter. Uranus. Neptune. Pluto. Saturn. Mars. Venus.
Jones: Hello, and welcome. I'm Jane Houston Jones at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Title - summer solstice
Jones: June marks the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere,
Title - winter solstice
Jones: when the sun is highest north of the celestial equator,
Title - Height of sun at noon
Jones: when it makes its highest path across the sky.
This means the days are long and the nights are short.
Title - Looking west after sunset June 10. Leo. Cancer. Gemini.
Jones: Make the best of the short nights and look for
Title - Venus
Jones: Venus a half hour after sunset, low on the western horizon.
Title - June 11. Cancer. Venus.
Jones: By mid-month, you'll see Earth's twin pass the pretty
Title - Beehive Cluster (M44)
Jones: Beehive Star Cluster.
Title - June 15. Moon. Beehive Cluster. Venus. Castor. Pollux.
Jones: On the 15th check out the lineup of the slender crescent moon, the Beehive Cluster, Venus and Gemini's twin
namesake stars: Castor and Pollux.
Title - Venus. Leo. Cancer. Gemini. Mars. Regulus.
Jones: Another pair of planets is nearby. Mars, which is just a dot or a small disk in a telescope now, pairs up with Leo's brightest star Regulus,
Title - Saturn
Jones: and is not too far from Saturn.
Title - June 13. Mars. Venus. Moon.
Jones: Keep an eye on the moon mid-month, too. It passes Venus on the 14th and Mars on the 16th.
Title - 2009. Capricornus. Jupiter. Telescope view.
Jones: Last year, steely-eyed observers caught a glimpse of Neptune near Jupiter.
Title - 2010. Pisces. Jupiter. Uranus. Telescope view.
Jones: And this year you'll find Uranus next to the king of the planets.
It's easy to know when you've spotted it. The blue-green color is unmistakeable.
Title - Jupiter
Jones: But you'll have to wait until nearly dawn. Jupiter doesn't even rise until after 2 a.m.
Title - Sagittarius. Pluto.
Jones: Even Pluto is worth hunting this month. The dwarf planet is a challenging object
Title - M24 Sagittarius Star Cloud
Jones: visible against the starry blanket of brighter Milky Way stars.
You'll need a good, experienced star tour guide and a dark sky with good southern horizons to spot it.
When school is out, you'll be treated to an amazing Milky Way spiraling overhead from south to north, a little after midnight.
Title - Hercules. Draco. Corona Borealis. Bootes. Little Dipper. Big Dipper.
Jones: You might even see some shooting stars from June's minor meteor showers this month.
Title - Learn more about NASA missions: www.nasa.gov
Jones: You can learn more about NASA missions to all of these planets - Venus, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Pluto and even Voyager's flyby of Uranus at www.nasa.gov.
Title - Thanks to the following for submitting images: Steve Barnes. William L. Castleman. Don DeWitt. Vanessa Harvey, REU Program/NOAO/AURA/NSF. Morris Jones. Henry Kline.
Jones: That's all for this month. I'm Jane Houston Jones.
Title - NASA. Jet Propulsion Laboratory. California Institute of Technology.